When Dominican Republic-born director Gabriela A. Moses pitched her feature debut, Boca Chica, she knew it was her duty to make vengeful films that would reach audiences’ hearts, and she got to work with a harsh but real setting story. : the life of a 12-year-old girl caught up in a sex tourism plot.
“Boca Chica” will be released in cinemas in the Dominican Republic in January and the director is confident that it will succeed because her goal was to “show the different sides of reality” and send a message.about a girl’s dream and her pain, because there is darkness about what is happening in this part, that of sex tourisml.”
The film addresses the situation of minors in the country, the hidden sides of tourism in idyllic landscapes and the family constraints and social expectations of young people in the transition to adulthood.
“Boca Chica” won the Norah Ephron Award at the Tribeca Festival, after which this New York neighborhood is named.
Vengeful cinema
Moses has four short films behind him and defends that cinema must be vengeful, because he is aware that it is “An artist and an artist is also an activist.”“.
Additionally, “the themes of the film are very important to say something and start a conversation about what’s going on.” Girls and sex tourism in the Caribbean and various parts of the world“.
“It is a very strong theme for my debut film, but very necessary,” says the director, who despite her youth (33 years old) has a lot of experience working with girls.
Although she was not the screenwriter, she was free to add what she felt was necessary to the script, “with different scenes and details with the screenwriters and with the permission of the producer,” according to Sterlyn Ramírez of Celine Films.
“Boca Chica,” like many Dominican films, is the result of a part of the film law that has been in effect in the Caribbean country for more than a decade, “which means we now have a golden age” for filmmakers in this country, according to Moses .
In this context, he has a script in mind about a black girl with albinism and is in the process of “finding that star” to make the film happen.
Director, author and production designer Gabriela A. Moses, born in New York to Dominican parents, has made it Bring your first film to the competition of the official section of the Huelva Festival of Ibero-American cinema in Spain, whose secondary character is set on the beach of Boca Chica, a Dominican paradise “which is also hell for Desi”, the main girl.
The director explains to EFE that the film’s premiere on Saturday in Huelva was somewhat surprising, thanks to the formula of this festival that allows the audience to talk to the team at the end of the screening, “and it was very exciting.” to see how we “They congratulated us and asked us questions about the film as soon as we saw it.”